Basic Electronics Tutorial : Lean the basics of electronics including electronics
circuits, PCB (Printed Circuit Board), Electronics Design,
Laws of Electronics. This article is designed for the beginner
to electronics. The more experienced hobbyist will probably
learn some new things as well, since there is a good deal of
information here that most non-professionals will be unaware
of.

Introduction to
Electronics: 1745
Cuneus and Muschenbrock,
in Leyden (Netherlands), discover the Leyden jar. The firstelectrical capacitor - a storage
mechanism for an electrical charge. The first ones were a
glass jar filled with water -two wires suspended in the
water. Muschenbrock got such a shock out of the first jar he
experimented with that he nearly died.
Later, the water was replaced with metal foils wrapped
so there was insulation between the layers of foil- the two
wires are attached to the ends of the sheets of foil. This
gave birth to Modern Electronics.

Definition of electronics:
Electronics is
the branch of
science that deals with the study of flow and control of electrons
(electricity) and the study of their behavior and effects in vacuums, gases,
and semiconductors, and with devices using such electrons. This control of
electrons is accomplished by devices that resist, carry, select, steer,
switch, store, manipulate, and exploit the electron.

Difference in “Electronics” and “Electrical”:
Electronics
deals with flow of charge (electron) through non-metal
conductors (semi-conductors).

Electrical deals with
the flow of charge through metal conductors.

Example: Flow of
charge through silicon which is not a metal would come under
electronics whereas flow of charge through copper which is a
metal would come under electrical.

Learn More on Basics of Electronics:

Electronics Definitions:
Electronics is
the branch of
science that deals with the study of flow and control of
electrons (electricity) and the study of their behavior and
effects in vacuums, gases, and semiconductors, and with devices
using such electrons.

Rules of Electrical
Circuits: * A voltage of 1V across a resistance
of 1 Ohm will cause a current flow of 1 Amp, and the resistor will
dissipate 1 Watt (all as heat).

What
is an electronic circuit? A circuit is a structure that directs
and controls electric currents, presumably to perform some useful
function. The very name "circuit" implies that the structure is
closed, something like a loop.

Current: Charge is mobile and can flow freely in certain
materials, called conductors. Metals and a few other elements and
compounds are conductors. Materials that charge cannot flow through
are called insulators. Air, glass, most plastics, and rubber are
insulators, for example. And then there are some materials called
semiconductors, that seemed to be good conductors sometimes but much
less so other times. Silicon and germanium are two such materials.
The flow of charge is called electrical current. Current is measured
in amperes (a), amps for short (named after another French scientist
who worked mostly with magnetic effects).

Wiring Symbols: There are many different representations for basic
wiring symbols, and these are the most common. The conventions
I use for wires crossing and joining are marked with a star (*) -
the others are a small sample of those in common use, but are fairly
representative. Many can be worked out from their position in
the circuit diagram (schematic).

Voltage:
Voltage is something is a type of "pressure" that drives electrical
charges through a circuit.
Bodies with opposite
charges attract, they exert a force on each other pulling them
together. The magnitude of the force is proportional to the product
of the charge on each mass.

What is charge?
Charge
may be defined as the quantity of unbalanced electricity in a body
(either positive or negative) and construed as an excess or
deficiency of electrons. Charge comes in two forms,
positive (+) , and negative charge ( - ) .

Batteries: Charges can be separated by several means to produce
a voltage. A battery uses a chemical reaction to produce energy and
separate opposite sign charges onto its two terminals. As the charge is
drawn off by an external circuit, doing work and finally returning to
the opposite terminal, more chemicals in the battery react to restore
the charge difference and the voltage. The particular type of chemical
reaction used determines the voltage of the battery, but for most
commercial batteries the voltage is about 1.5 V per chemical section or
cell.

Resistors: A Resistor isan electrical device that resists the flow of
electrical current. It is a passive device used to
control, or impede the flow of, electric current in an
electric circuit by providing resistance, thereby developing
a drop in voltage across the device.
The value of a resistor is measured in ohms
and represented by the Greek letter capital omega. Resistors usually
have a brown cylindrical body with a wire lead on each end, and
colored bands that indicate the value of the resistor.

Ohm’s Law: Ohm's law describes the relationship between
voltage, V , which is trying to force charge to flow, resistance, R
, which is resisting that flow, and the actual resulting current I .

Capacitors: In simple words, we can say that a capacitor is a device
used to store and release electricity, usually as the result
of a chemical action. Also referred to as a storage cell, a
secondary cell, a condenser or an accumulator. A Leyden Jar
was an early example of a capacitor.

Inductors:
An inductor isan electrical device (typically a
conducting coil) that introduces inductance into a circuit.
An inductor is a passive electrical component designed to
provide inductance in a circuit. It is basically a coil of
wire wrapped around an iron core. simplest form an inductor
is made up of a coil of wire. The inductance measured in
henrys, is proportional to the number of turns of wire, the
wire loop diameter and the material or core the wire is
wound around.

Semiconductor devices: A conductor made with semiconducting
material. Semiconductors are made up of a substance with electrical
properties intermediate between a good conductor and a good
insulator. A semiconductor device conducts electricity poorly at
room temperature, but has increasing conductivity at higher
temperatures. Metalloids are usually good semiconductors.

Silicon: Silicon, atomic number 14 on the periodic table, is a semiconducting
material from which integrated circuits (computer chips of all
types--processors, memory chips, etc.; CCDs; transistors; etc.) are
created.

Silicon is one of the most common elements. Silicon is also the
semiconductor material out of which almost all modern transistors are
made.

Diodes:
A Diode is an electronic device that allows
current to flow in one direction only. It is a semiconductor that consists of a p-n junction. They are used
most commonly to convert AC to DC, because they pass the
positive part of the wave, and block the negative part of
the AC signal, or, if they are reversed, they pass only the
negative part and not the positive part.